The 1990's decade has been marked by a societal technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. Like all such revolutions, it unleashed a significant ripple effect of technological waves. The effect has in turn driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the internet-related distribution of documents, media and programs. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communications distribution channels, and the World Wide Web or internet which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility reached "critical mass" and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of documents, media and computer programs.
As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human-computer interfaces. Thus, there is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the world's population which, up to a year or two ago, was computer-illiterate, or at best computer indifferent. In order for the vast computer supported market places to continue and be commercially productive, it will be necessary for a large segment of computer indifferent consumers to be involved in computer interfaces. Thus, the challenge of our technology is to create interfaces to computers which are intuitive and forgive any impreciseness on the part of users. This is particularly needed with respect to the World Wide Web or internet. Users must be able to readily display documents in a clear and comprehensive manner in natural language. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which had been the documentation language of the internet World Wide Web for years, offered an answer. It offered direct links between pages and other documentation on the Web and a variety of related data sources which were, at first, text and then evolved into media, i.e. "hypermedia".
With all of these rapidly expanding functions of Web pages and like documentation, it should be readily understandable that the demand for Web documents has been expanding exponentially in recent years. In addition to the proliferating standard uses of HTEL for text and media related World Wide Web pages for commercial, academic and entertainment purposes, there is now a Java documentation program, JavaDoc, which will produce standard HTML files for outputs to computer controlled displays to provide standard natural language displays of the program documentation. Thus, HTML has become the display language of choice for the internet or World Wide Web. It is used there for all forms of display documentation including the markup of hypertext and hypermedia documents which are usually stored with their respective documents on an internet or Web server in addition to the above-mentioned program documentation functions. HTML is an application of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), an ISO standard for defining the structure and contents of any digital document. It should be recognized that any of the aspects of the present invention illustrated with respect to HTML would be equally applicable to SGML. For further details on JavaDoc or HTML, reference may be made to the texts "just Java", 2nd Edition, Peter van der Linden, Sun Microsystems, Inc., 1997, or "Java in a Nutshell", 2nd Edition, by David Flanagan, O'Reilly publisher, 1997.
We have found that the human factors/ease of use interface functions of the World Wide Web have not advanced as swiftly as have the rapid expansion of the many other Web functions. There have been great efforts among the providers of Web function to try to standardize the interfaces used in Web browsers, for example the Web Browser Interface (WBI). However, its user interfaces to hotspots, i.e. links to hypertext and hypermedia embedded in the textual and graphic materials on Web pages, have not changed very much from when the demand for Web pages and related documentation was relatively modest and the user base was a much more computer-elite and sophisticated group. Traditional pointing devices such as mice, wands or joysticks have been used in accessing such hotspots. These pointing devices require two types of coordinated physical movements: a gross movement to the proximity of the hotspot and then a fine movement to the hotspot itself. This requires an unusual amount of physical dexterity and may often lead to frustration, particularly if the users are unsophisticated in computer gestures. Years ago when mouse/icon graphic interfaces to computer displays were being developed, the problem was recognized by interface designers, they tried to design graphic interfaces which took these movements and gestures into account in providing sufficient spacing around icons.
However, in the case of Web pages, we do not have the situation of a relatively small group of professional designers working out the human factors; rather in the era of the Web, anyone and everyone can design a Web page. Thus, while hotspots in Web pages may be icons, they are more likely to be textual and embedded in adjacent text and emphasized as hotspots merely by being underlined or of a different color or boldness from adjacent text. But even where the hotspots are icons or other graphics, their page layouts are often made by developers without graphic skills. In addition, it is the nature of Web pages that they are frequently modified to include new hotspots, and the addition of hotspots rarely involve an overall page redesign.
The present invention provides a solution to the problem of improving the interface and access to hotspots in received Web pages by dynamically reorganizing the hotspots on each page received at the user's display station into a layout of displayed hotspot zones which are much more accessible to the user and are very forgiving with respect to both Web page hotspot design limitations as well as user limitations in gesture skills with the pointing devices.